


The Price of Blood

by kriegslastbraincell



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Borderlands 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26330221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kriegslastbraincell/pseuds/kriegslastbraincell
Summary: An outsider's inside five part account of Troy Calypso's life.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	The Price of Blood

**Stage I - Innocence Begets Unknowing**

Troy is five years old when he hears his father utter the word “disability” for the first time. 

He tries to replicate it, tasting the sizzle of the ‘s’ and running his tongue over the knolls and ridges pushed together in a penitent description of his body’s purpose. The word falls from his mouth as messily as the thin strings of saliva and bile he’s choking up into the silt. Exhaustion grips him, and he collapses, face-down, into the hot sick and cold earth. 

Typhon finds him later, calling with some distaste for his boy. Troy is unable to call back. His lips are cracked, his throat parched, and “momma” turns to ash on his tongue. It isn’t Typhon he wants to find him here, a tangle of gaunt limbs and cold flesh. He wants to feel the warmth of his mother reaching out to him. The patience and understanding of someone whose legs failed often, whose heart beat sometimes too slowly, and whose love transcended the sour tang of ability. 

Troy exhales as his right side flames. He struggles for breath and chokes up more bile. Typhon’s voice calls to him, peppered with a growing agitation that Tyreen blamed him for.  _ If only you were bigger. If only you were stronger. If only you were whole. If only not a burden…  _

Troy closes his eyes and pretends he is okay. 

**Stage II - Kindred: Burned and Unfeeling**

Troy is six years old when he watches his mother wither in Tyreen’s little hands. Her screams are a melancholy melody that plays on repeat in his head. The crackle of flesh and the snapping of bones echo in his skull, a choir of anguish and agony. A pillow clamped over his head, over his ears, is hardly enough to drown out the sound of his own sorrow. Beet-red and wet, his cheeks are a canvas of confusion and anger.

He doesn’t know what betrayal means, neither how to say or spell it yet, but in time it will run parallel to his relationships. Troy is too young and unlearned to understand the price of blood. And the bill is held in Tyreen’s name. 

She comes into the room, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands. Troy can see his mother’s blood dripping off of her fingers. Like bile or tears, it splatters on the floor. It pools around the shape of her, soaking into the sheets of their shared bed. Tyreen grips the cloth around her middle, rubbing her stomach wickedly. 

Troy shies away. He listens to her gurgling sobs transmute in her throat. Coughing sadness gives ways to ticking breaths. The air dips in and out of her lungs. Bouncing around in her chest until sadness evaporates into pleasure. It echoes off of her ribcage, parting her lips, and leaving in a giggle. 

Tyreen’s eyes are wide, her pupils blown, as she gazes at Troy. Smaller, weaker than her. “I did it, Troy.” She whispers cooly. Her laughter is bubbling up again. “I finally feel  _ full _ .” 

Something cracks inside of him. Troy rolls over and tries to sleep. 

**Stage III - Negotiations Unforeseen**

Troy is sixteen when Tyreen blindly takes from him. Her hands gnaw against his skin, her teeth a predator’s invitation as they sink into her own flesh. He is unaware and hazy, watching her with lightless eyes. His lips are numb, immovable obstacles that cannot bend around the bleeding agony sitting on his chest. The throes of adolescence are unnatural, even on this alien planet that has become more of a prison and less of a home. 

Tyreen wants to leave and Troy wants her to go. She tells him stories about the greater beyond. It sparks the nostalgia of childhood that puts the light back behind his eyes. He would have told her no if he knew, but he agrees to help her, believing it to be for Typhon’s sake. This planet is heavy with the weight of mourning. They could all use a change of scenery.

After all, since the accident it seems sadness is entangled in their DNA. It’s vicious in Troy’s veins. It’s thriving in Tyreen’s unaccounted for power. It’s hiding in the shadows of Typhon’s empty bottles and emptier promises. 

Troy puts the ship together. He visits his mom’s grave often. He strikes a deal with the universe.

**Stage IV - Listless Earth**

Troy is a celestial body orbiting a dying star. His tongue nearly forgets how to savor the intricacies of independence. In small moments, in small ways, he pushes against the outside edge of a silver lining. He runs his tongue along his unused teeth and tastes the patina. 

If only he knew. Had he been stronger, he wondered, would he be here at all? The baleful weight of the sand and sun is wilting him. Just like his mother. He stands on tired legs with bruised ribs and broken confidence, parroting the ego afforded to him by a script he wrote with shaking hands. He stands behind the camera, always in the dark and a little out of focus. They like him anyway: in smaller numbers in smaller groups in smaller pieces he cuts away from his own skin and feeds to the first hungry mouth. 

He’s lost track of time and understanding, but the power beneath Tyreen’s feet is staggering. She uses words like “I” and “me” and “Parasite.” There’s a  _ but _ behind her words and Troy wants to ask but he fears the reaction. When she grows hungry and impatient, she turns to him and directs the director. Always making changes but never making progress. 

It isn’t until Troy feels dust and ash between his fingers that he understands the cost. 

**Stage V - Integration, Sufferance, and a Stolen “Yes”**

Troy aches at the end of it all. He thinks of Leda with love. Tyreen with disdain. Typhon with anger. He watches, high above himself, as his body pushes beyond broken boundaries. He watches his power unfold and untangle itself from his flesh. He notices the way he looks. Untamed, wild, and hungry. 

He sinks back into himself as his knees kiss the intricate ground. He feels the weight of it all. 

Free from her. From him. 

Troy doesn’t realize it, but he’s okay with this. 


End file.
